On Monday 26th June, the Catalan TV Channel 33 interviewed our group leader Prof. Mervi Mantsinen regarding to the prospects of fusion energy and its potential impact on society.

The programme was a part of the documentary series El dia de demà which investigates and discusses many possible future scenarios through the point of view of experts. The topics treated in the various programmes of the series are various, ranging from education to energy sources.

Simulation was performed on the Titan supercomputer. Source: Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility.

For the first time, scientists have been able to simulate the spontaneous transition of turbulence at the edge of a fusion plasma to the high-confinement mode (H-mode) that sustains fusion reactions. The detailed simulation is the first basic physics, or first-principles-based, modeling with few simplifying assumptions.

The conference was held in the sunny town of Aix-en-Provence in south of France and was organized by the IRFM(Institut de Recherche sur la Fusion par confinement Magnétique) of the CEA Physical Science Division.

From May the 15th to the 18th, the Barcelona Supercomputing Center held the European HPC Summit Week 2017 and the PRACEdays17, an event focused on the usage of High Performance Computing in the industry and the academia.

We are particularly pleased to report that our Master student Felipe Nathan de Oliveira won the PRACE award for the best poster. His work entitled “Nonlinear electromagnetic stabilization of ITG micro-turbulence by ICRF-driven fast ions in ASDEX Upgrade” was short-listed for the presentation on May the 16th with other two candidates.